It comes in flashes — brief, fleeting, though inexplicably daunting in each hasty, crude arrival, wreaking havoc on his fraying consciousness–

— Fraying… that’s right. It seems as if he can scarcely think lately.

It’s even harder when the words he once commandeered so effortlessly — with all his sinister indulgences and lyric-stained puppet strings — run amok, pouring dangerously out of line as something crashes in like the apocalypse.

Every twinge that rumbles in his–

… hi_s.

[…. heart… yes, one of those… he… does have one of those… right–?]

As tarnished, blotched and utterly irreparable as it is–

Every twinge that rumbles on is a sign that he’s losing it.

://you_TAKE_me_down

://you_BRING_me_down

://you_SHUT_me_down

__ _ y o _ u . _ _ .

Generosity breeds resentment.

— The irony of this seems laughable, and yet, it pulses through him, undeterred in its fury-driven raid, ravaging like a forest fire.

It consumes him, it becomes him. Because all he can see–

— is him smiling the way he does to every worthless, writhing creature that passes him by.

Repulsive, isn’t it. Cheapness at its finest.

And he waits for the accursed ache to dull as he plows through the insults, the barbs, the scathing verbal blades he’s held in perpetual reserve, like an emaciated specter — hunched, crooked and dragging pitifully through the infestations of a riven, cognitive wasteland.

[How dare he how dare he how dare he–]

::_ YOU ___ NEVER ___ LOOKED _ AT > > __ _ me.

NOT EVEN ONCE –

NOT EVEN ONCE .

The memories cave in, crumbling into a frightful splatter.

Like blood, very much like blood.

It’s the prelude of a chapter of self-destruction. And from here, he can amend this.

— This error.

The error of a recalcitrant desire, one that’s spiraled out of his fallaciously impeccable control.

–what control?–

He is seething, barring out the weak-willed wishes with every last shred of his rent ego.

He’d never known it to be this hard.

because _ you _ h at e _ m e. : )

He needs him.

So much.

And this propels his self-loathing to a cosmic height–

–What? What are you

talking about?

[A venomous sneer.]

This is a mere game.

Amusement is rare to come by, after all. And if I can make him want me–